Dime Dropper
All-Star
That is down to pee-poor decisions on the part of our front offices, not due to the system. It gave us every opportunity to ascend.
Race to the Bottom thread
- Thread starter iowamcnabb
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That is down to pee-poor decisions on the part of our front offices, not due to the system. It gave us every opportunity to ascend.
The legendary HOF talent was right there for us to draft. We didn't. Not a fault of the system, but our own eval.
I still think the lottery system is quite awful, but it at least gives a team like the Kings a CHANCE to grab that talent. The NBA rookie FA, would not
eleventy
G-League
i'm not for "scrapping the draft" - however
it does open one interesting possibility
and that is that if teams have to "outbid" other teams for generational talent, they are going to have to be pretty sure they are correct in their talent assessment, before committing big money.
as someone said earlier, what if the kings (or someone who outbid them) gave bagley a 4/160 contract out of college, at age 19?
one thing that a "no draft" system would HAVE to mandate is a hard cap (same for all teams), otherwise the "haves" could always outbid the "have nots".
with a "same for all teams" cap, you'd have to carefully consider how much you would have to offer.
and the "bottom half" teams, would have the advantage that the "good" teams would have (likely) more salary already committed to "good" players, so, "bad" teams should have more money to offer.
then we see if the best players would choose the best teams (only) and i don't think they would (if the good teams could only offer "less" money)
and before someone (again) says, "players have more ways to earn big money in a bigger market", well, as i said before, sportico does not indicate that:
once again:
Highest-Paid Athletes in the World: Full List
Cristiano Ronaldo was the highest-paid athlete in the world in 2025, earning $260 million.
www.sportico.com
and, of course the players (and agents) would never go for it.
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
Right. And before the last “fix” they had three or four but the last fix made it worse not better.
This is also why the Montréal Canadiens are inscribed on the Stanley Cup 24 times but only twice since the 80s and zero times over the last 30+ years.
Exactly half of these cup runs came before the first NHL draft was held in 1963, though they remained dominant into the 70s.
For a small amount of perspective, the last time they hoisted the cup was 1993. In 1994, the NY Rangers won their first cup in 54 years. Fans used to taunt them with "1940" for years until they finally won. The winningest franchise in cup history is now over 3/5 of the way there themselves.
Joshyjosh31
Starter
We know how silver fixes unnecessary problems we’re having a tournament
How are bad teams supposed to get better Jesus get this idiot out of here
Most of these don’t make sense if odds freeze at the deadline why the **** wouldn’t you just start the tank in October then play after the deadline
Yes, that's exactly how teams would tank.
I'm no longer stunned that they are considering every possibility that I already know won't work while never considering the one that I know will. I am Old Man, Screaming At Clouds. Oh well.
Joshyjosh31
Starter
Well it’s silver.. what way do you think would work?
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
So, in other words...tank hard in the first half and then do your thing in the second? I can live with that...
I am a strong proponent of a game-theoretical approach where (in a simple description) each NBA front office ranks the teams in the order they think teams should pick, and those rankings are combined/averaged to get the final draft order. Teams will be motivated to direct the top picks to the teams with the bleakest future outlooks, and won't be fooled by tanking, because they will take rosters/contracts/ability to sign FAs into consideration. It takes the objective "team record" measure completely out of it, which then gives teams no real incentive to tank. That's the basic gist of what I think would work well. Lots of details to iron out, but from a general point of view the approach should be solid.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
I think I wrote this above but I think the tanking thing is an issue because of a few things. One of them is a few of the mediocre teams of years past like the Kings and Pels have just finally taken the easy route down the drain. Even one or two extra teams doing that makes things a dogfight in the suckage department and a little more obvious when more than just a few teams are sitting guys to lose. The other thing is that there might be 3 potential all stars sitting in the top 3, and who knows at 4. And then at 5-8 it's a worthy shot, why not variety. It's not a super deep draft, and there are no guaranteed generational talents, but there is some belief of certainty that a team won't just be left holding air at the end of draft night. They might have a franchise "pillar".
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Some of those actually aren't bad ideas. The protection on picks thing could be interesting but I don't see how that wouldn't just make the tankers super tankers. Isn't this what the Jazz are accused of?
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
1. First-round picks can be protected only top-4 or top-14+
I don't understand what the point of this restriction is. What problem is this solving?
2. Lottery odds freeze at the trade deadline or a later date
This seems like an obvious good idea; please allow there be at least a couple of months of real basketball competition for fans of rebuilding teams. Is anyone against this?
3. No longer allowing a team to pick top 4 in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-3 finishes
So, what happens to their pick then? Do they get to trade it down or trade it away? (If it's tradable, still might be worth tanking to get the pick as an asset) If you get a year with a Pervis Ellison, or a Greg Oden, it multiplies the tragedy when you have to give up next year's pick as well. I could see this combined with a rookie hard salary cap; one which would allow teams to waive the duds they drafted in order to draft the next stud.
4. Teams can’t pick top-4 the year after making conference finals
The Indiana Pacers rule. This seems a bit too cruel if your star gets a career ending injury in the finals. Why make a team wait a year before rebuilding? But like the above, maybe the pick is tradable if you aren't allowed to make the pick yourself?
5. Lottery odds allocated based on two-year records
I like this the best, but why not three or four year records?
6. Lottery extended to include all play-in teams
This seems like it's merely intended to try and prop up the value of making the play-in. I don't see any other value in it
7. Flatten odds for all lottery teams
More of the same. "Maybe if we tweak these sliders a bit we'll solve the problem" Flattening the odds will make it take longer to cycle teams from bottom dwellers to the playoffs, and it already takes too long.
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I'd go for a heavy dose of 2 and 5, but they probably aren't enough to stop tanking, they are just mitigations.
Playing around with 3 seems promising, maybe a workable system could be made on that basis if you added some draft dud bailouts. 4 seems ok, but the problem it's solving is currently insignificant.
1 and 6 seem like non-solutions to me.
I think 7 is a bad idea unless you think the real purpose of teams like Sacramento is to provide "content" for fans of more popular franchises.
I don't understand what the point of this restriction is. What problem is this solving?
2. Lottery odds freeze at the trade deadline or a later date
This seems like an obvious good idea; please allow there be at least a couple of months of real basketball competition for fans of rebuilding teams. Is anyone against this?
3. No longer allowing a team to pick top 4 in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-3 finishes
So, what happens to their pick then? Do they get to trade it down or trade it away? (If it's tradable, still might be worth tanking to get the pick as an asset) If you get a year with a Pervis Ellison, or a Greg Oden, it multiplies the tragedy when you have to give up next year's pick as well. I could see this combined with a rookie hard salary cap; one which would allow teams to waive the duds they drafted in order to draft the next stud.
4. Teams can’t pick top-4 the year after making conference finals
The Indiana Pacers rule. This seems a bit too cruel if your star gets a career ending injury in the finals. Why make a team wait a year before rebuilding? But like the above, maybe the pick is tradable if you aren't allowed to make the pick yourself?
5. Lottery odds allocated based on two-year records
I like this the best, but why not three or four year records?
6. Lottery extended to include all play-in teams
This seems like it's merely intended to try and prop up the value of making the play-in. I don't see any other value in it
7. Flatten odds for all lottery teams
More of the same. "Maybe if we tweak these sliders a bit we'll solve the problem" Flattening the odds will make it take longer to cycle teams from bottom dwellers to the playoffs, and it already takes too long.
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I'd go for a heavy dose of 2 and 5, but they probably aren't enough to stop tanking, they are just mitigations.
Playing around with 3 seems promising, maybe a workable system could be made on that basis if you added some draft dud bailouts. 4 seems ok, but the problem it's solving is currently insignificant.
1 and 6 seem like non-solutions to me.
I think 7 is a bad idea unless you think the real purpose of teams like Sacramento is to provide "content" for fans of more popular franchises.
eleventy
G-League
"Teams will be motivated to direct the top picks to the teams with the bleakest future" - the captain
oh captain, my captain, can you elaborate on why the good teams would willingly give up their (economic) advantage to help teams with the bleakest futures?
not disagreeing, i just want more details
said the captain: "each NBA front office ranks the teams in the order they think teams should pick, and those rankings are combined/averaged to get the final draft order.
unless those rankings were held on tv like the draft, wouldn't each gm list themselves as "first", figuring that others would do the same and if they did NOT, they would be crucified by their season ticket holders ?
i guess you could add to that, "but no gm/team can vote for themselves" (but then it had BETTER be in the "public eye")
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Number 2 is the most interesting. The thing is though you know teams like the Kings would exploit the heck out of that. Suck all the way to the deadline then go out and sign/trade for 10 Westbrooks and try to make the play in, lol.
eleventy
G-League
what about something with a REAL penalty, but just "vague" enough to make teams worry, "i could get penalized"
like
#8: ANY team which is decided - by who? commish? BOG? vote of other GM's? vote of agents (whose clients might "squeal" on their owner?) - to have attempted to finesse the anti-tanking rules gets an immediate loss of whatever picks they were entitled to for the next three years?
maybe the "penalty" just needs to be harsher (risk vs reward - after all, tanking does not guarantee ANYTHING - good -, so maybe the severe threat of a penalty is enough. if an owner doesn't like it, the league will be happy to help them "cash out" by finding someone to buy their team (and if this solves the tanking problem, there might be more potential new owners eager to join the club).
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
Not to mention the one player they could have gotten picks for was Fox. Instead we sent a pick to Chicago for Zach.
Yes, but I did make clear that this was the outline of a proposal that did not include full details as there are obviously plenty of kinks to work out (as there would be in any radical departure). None of them are too difficult to work out, I don't think.
I don't understand the question about good teams giving up an economic advantage. Once all of the results are tallied, *somebody* has to get the number one pick, *somebody* has to get the #2 pick, etc. Nobody wants to see the #1 pick go to a team that is already competitive, because THAT hurts their own chances to win.
Yes, it would not make sense to allow teams to rank themselves. But that's a minor detail.
Again, don't nitpick on details here. Details can be ironed out. The point is that that we move away from *any* objective metric that takes record into account and change to a subjective and collective ranking, where the ranking is made by the people (NBA front offices) who are the world's biggest experts in how good/bad all of the NBA's teams are, and who each have game-theoretical incentive to rank accurately, because any good team that is misranked higher than they deserve will get a competitive advantage, and no NBA front office is going to want to give any other team a competitive advantage.
Joshyjosh31
Starter
No we wouldn the only reason we’re even in this position is cause of injuries and a hard first half schedule the basketball gods took over. We wouldn’t what are be gunning for the play in otherwise so zero chance they’d be smart enough to yank the first half
Joshyjosh31
Starter
Great idea that won’t happen
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
If this is what it will take to get Vivek tf out of ownership of the Kings, then I am all for this!
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
True, lol.
Now, I think we know what happens in this scenario. Vivek looks at the performance of the Kings over the past X-1 years, realizes that if he doesn't hit .400 this year, he's going to be forced to sell the team. Goes out and signs DeMar DeRozan to a bad contract to get enough wins to get over the threshold. Gets the #11 pick. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Effectively, all of the bad teams will make short-term moves that don't help the team build a contender in order to stay at or above the winning threshold. Teams with daring would dip once to try to get a good draft pick, but otherwise would just have to take their chances with all of the other teams clustering around the criterion line.
This puts a very, very strong incentive on owners to sacrifice smart, long-term team building in favor of becoming juuuuuust good enough for the owners to keep the team. Want to create a permanent underclass of teams in the league? This would do it!
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
My problem with this approach, is that once you go away from a "closed" system based on an objective metric, then it stops being a simple game, it becomes just another marketplace. You might as well just be selling lottery tickets.
Maybe you could get away with all the owners voting for a czar to assign picks. Maybe that just becomes the commish's job; Silver decides who gets the top 5 picks, how would you like that?
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
I'm not sure if I believe the premise here, I think chance actually plays a bigger role in franchise success that management competence.
But this proposal is fundamentally never gonna happen, so...